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Re: Bootstrapping a cooperative conlang

From:<morphemeaddict@...>
Date:Friday, November 16, 2007, 23:22
In a message dated 11/16/2007 1:56:43 PM Central Standard Time,
fiziwig@YAHOO.COM writes:


> I'm reminded of Wierzbicka's NSM definition of "mouse" which runs 33 lines > of > text with 355 words*, covering such things as category, habitat, size, > appearance, etc. etc., all to narrow down the concept until "mouse" is the > only > thing that fits the bill. While theoretically fascinating, for the purpose of > building a practical language for everyday use, a simple picture of a mouse > would have sufficed. A picture truely is worth 355 words in this instance. >
Her explication of "mouse" is so long because the meaning is so complex. A picture of a mouse could also mean lots of different things, such as just "animal", or "pest", or the color of the mouse (if not black and white). For the explication of a word in this new language, they need not have all the detail of the corresponding English word. The detail could be added separately. stevo </HTML>

Replies

Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>
Herman Miller <hmiller@...>